


A Day's Work

by Oakentide



Series: SAO Pride Week [1]
Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Armchair Therapy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 21:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18396365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oakentide/pseuds/Oakentide
Summary: Written for SAO Prideweek 2019's Day 1 prompt. Virtual World vs Real World.Kirito had been trying to help Eiji with his full-dive non-comformity, but Eiji has recently started approaching the problem from another angle.





	A Day's Work

“Okay, keep breathing. Focus on your toes.”

Full body awareness training again. I think she called it ‘mindfulness.’  
“Now focus on your feet. . . . Now your ankles.”

My right is a still little sore. I wasn’t sure whether to rest it today, but it’s stings to focus on it. It would be worse I’d ran today.  
“... knees.”

Oh. Out of focus. Knees.  
Thighs.  
“Your waist. And now your lower back.”

Shoulders coming up soon. I can already feel them and we’re up to my lower back. I need to be gentle with myself. I get it. But I was gentle for too long...  
“Okay, now your neck. Your forehead. Your mouth. Now, your nose.”

I skip to this step when I’m meditating "in the field". Breathing in, breathing out. Air brushing my nostrils. Life.  
Energy.  
Power.  
Relax.  
Waiting.

“Okay, how do you feel?”

Eiji opened his eyes.  
“I stayed awake.”  
“What do you feel in your arms?”  
“They’re... tense. I haven’t made a fist, but my arms and chest are tense. I’m not comfortable.”  
“Where else are you tense?”  
“I can take a nap at home for free, you know. I’m glad I stayed awake.”

I hear her sigh, and I can’t blame her. It’s hard to be clear on what’s happening.  
“I don’t want to move. I think I’m sweating, and I have to tell myself to move.”  
“Okay, very good. You’re getting better, but you have a long way to go.”  
Thank you.  
Biofeedback. To test muscle activation, you can see an ultrasound of your muscles as you focus on them. It’s a staple of physical training today but only professional sportsmen and very dedicated amateurs used them when the technology was new. And expectant mothers. I’m looking at a representation of my brain activity, but I’ll shut it off and start recording soon.

I repeat the “mindfulness” exercise. My shoulders seized a little and were sore when I focused on them. I trained weights two days ago, but they were more sore today than yesterday. I think I was worried about whether I’d need to rest instead of work my arms tomorrow, since I'll still have to work at my job, too. 

Looking at the reading later, there's a big spike around where shoulders are mentioned in my therapist's recording. I don't look at it live. I want to parse the amygdala and maybe the hypothalamus from my primary motor cortex, but the signals from all of these to the Amusphere are drowned out by my visual cortex whenever I look at something. About 200 milliseconds after the spike it's normal again. If I was *more* worried about my shoulder, then I'd be able to move my avatar but not focus on sword skills after that time.

I log out, then stroll into my bedroom. Kirito’s there, working at his computer, but switches his desktop workspaces just after he notices me. If I didn’t know what to look for, I’d mistake it for normal workflow. I rest my head on his shoulder. He hums thoughtfully before greeting me, and that smooth, dull tone makes me more sleepy. I sink down and put my arms around him. Warm. Safe.  
“Hello. How was therapy?”

“Always exhausting. Worse than running right after weights. Your day?”  
“I’ve just been doing programming commissions. A game maker for augmented reality games has been out for long enough that amateurs are getting the hang of it, but quite a few people with money backing them are finding the limitations and wanting more."  
"Oh. So you just import all the elements and make them work together?"  
I felt a smile in his voice. I'm not really aware of my own tone yet. I'm still getting the hang of bodily sensations for emerging emotions. It's warm. Fond.

"Yes, that's the idea. But the details aren't as simple as that."

I still didn't know any programming, but followed what he was doing in a broad sense as he worked. Eventually, the code turned from gibberish to a sloshing mass of wavy black lines. I wasn't dizzy, but I wasn't taking anything in, whether from the screen or my boyfriend.

“Well, I’m going to go to sleep.”  
I kiss him on the cheek, and he smirks.

“Alright. I’ll try not to wake you up when I join you.”  
That night, I really did fall asleep quickly, but three weeks ago I got a glimpse, half-asleep, at what he was really up to most of the day, and almost certainly what he’d be working on when I was out. A third-party plugin for the Amusphere which included a high-pass filter for certain types of cortical activity. He didn’t write the diagnostic program, but I wouldn’t have gotten the name of it, or realised it existed, without noticing him working with it. It's still very soon after we revisited Aincrad, and I didn't want to play a game like that seriously again until I'd fixed my fulldive non-comformity. I guess he picked up on that.

It was after another week that I finally admitted defeat - or rather, that I needed some help suppressing my emotional spikes. It's only just now that I'm realising that was a waste of time, and that I'm brimming with emotional activity that I'm numb to. A long story, for another time. 

Tense legs and shoulders just as I was falling asleep. Probably a slightly higher body temperature. So, anxiety, I think. 200 is pretty good. I want less than 30 for relived trauma, and I'll never forget where I stood in Aincrad when I failed her. Remembering that deliberately in therapy sessions is just a matter of picturing that spot, and my view of it frozen in place staring at the floor. Her final gift to me, though it's been years since I've been able to see it as that - more than her sacrifice for the clearing group and the players they were helping.

I want to surprise Kirito by not needing to be saved a third time. If not, trying is the least I could do for him.


End file.
